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-   -   August 2011 : Indian Car Sales & Analysis (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/107160-august-2011-indian-car-sales-analysis-4.html)

I expected dull sales of New Ford Fiesta but the pathetic numbers for August is indeed shocking. Ford has shot themselves on the foot here with NFS pricing. I was at a Ford plant when they had announced the launch and pricing of Fusion and I had immediately predicted that it will never sell at that price and was proven right.

I feel they will have to significantly bring down the price of NFS if they have to make the numbers

Here is my thoughts and Questions:
Maruti Alto - Unbeatable Queen of the segment, Competitors are too late on this segment. When Hyundai is going to answer?
Swift - Would be facing stiff competition in the near future, This time it is not going to be like its first gen launch. Making the car easily available might help M&M, But is that something easy for them with the production capabilities?
Fiesta - Abnormal price, They need to learn from Verna.
Fiesta classic- A nice car soon to be like Ikon. May be taxis would turn their head and sooner the car will vanish from the roads?
Honda and City - The pricing is something they should have done on or before Beat and Vento launch - late but not bad. a hard learning for Honda.
Aveo and Aveo UVA - Time for redesign and diesel options.
Mitsubishi - Sad to see them. They didn't plan or invest in India. They direction is unclear.
Fiat - They remain the same as Mitsubishi
i20 - Time for a facelift and price reduction?
Accent - A replacement is something needed. But I see all ix35, i30 etc are Hatches. Do they have anything in cords?
Santa Fe - Availability, Better pricing, Localization could easily bring them up. I hope Hyundai would be thinking about it, Sirs, Its the time for XUV 5 ohoh launch!
A-Star - The space occupied by them in the showrooms, may need for MIII. Should go away like Baleno, Versa, Esteem etc.
Gypsy sales is a surprise to me - More order from defense?
Yeti - Better pricing is again the issue, many do not consider it a car or SUV. I like to see them more on the road.
Micra - Lack of publicity? Customers who come to see Sunny might like Micra - a sales boost might happen. Just a guess.
Xylo - This is not the design we expected, but the price helped them to sell decently. This may not continue for months - A better design is needed.

BTW,
Tata Venture - Do we have the sales figures? - Is it not a Omni/Eeco challenger?

Itz been a long wait but worthy enough.

i'd start with the Beat at 4600 seems to be loosing steam here, it should as i have always said settle at around 3.5-4k per month mark, anything more will be a bonus for GM.

Nano, fiesta were the shockers.

Is this a return of the A-star? 4 digit numbers?

A lot of members have commented on sales of micre, i think they are doing arespectable number with limited sales outlet and a car with its own limitations.

The Fiat Linea numbers look astonishingly low. Surprisingly the Fiat folks dont seem as deterred, since they say the retail sales for Aug 2011 was 1450 lineas - which is the highest for the year ! Not sure if this is any indication since ultimately the factory despatches reported here is an indication of the retail demand a month down.

Its going horribly wrong for Fiat again, inspite of the new Italian bosses in charge of marketing and sales at Fiat India.

Some comments from my side:
- New Ford Fiesta is an utter flop. Pricing gone horribly wrong, plus the cheap interiors and not-that-impressive drivetrains may be contributing factors.
- Chevy needs to smarten up their act. Their premium sedan the Cruze sells more than the Aveo/UVA/Optra put together; the Beat & Spark are so-so.
- I hate to say I told you so. Jazz at 600 units proves that it takes more than just a price correction to make the car a best-seller. The Swift shall not be easily dethroned!
- Fiat should just put themselves out of their misery: Linea is too good a car to warrant just 100 units. If the ANHC can notch up nearly 6000 units and Vento half that, surely the TJet alone should manage 1500 or so easily. The car is dead.
- Why has the X1 not sold for the last 2 months? No offtakes from showrooms? Real tragedy that for BMW.
- Fluence at zero units made me a little smug, after the indifferent way I was treated at their Shivajinagar showroom. Serve 'em right.
- Jetta 319 units? Well well well! Indian consumers are totally unpredictable. I would have said the car has zero VFM compared to the Vento at one end and the Laura/Superb at the other.
- Kizashi at 8 units. Where's a facepalm icon when you need one? There's still time, Maruti! Offer some killer festive offers and watch it fly off the shelves.

- As observed by almost all, City's turnaround is legendary! I hope this sustains. The car is bloody brilliant, and trumps competitors despite being petrol only, and with almost NO gizmos. A great, spacious car, with a BRILLIANT engaging engine, with decent FE, low on maintenance and high on reliability.

- Let all the dealers who sport smug face and say '6 months waiting' be damned in the deepest recesses of hell. Vento TDI, Verna CRDI, Swift DDiS and the creed. I read in other thread that VDi Swift had 48 weeks waiting in some place. What the hell? That's one year. Let Beat Diesel, Brio, and even Liva take the long list. Guys, just walk out when someone tells you to wait 6 months. Even I heard that Hyundai WANTS a waiting period on Verna - It is no Rolls Royce

- i20 - Need price cut, and put back the 6 shift gear box.

- Vento should roll back 30K hike on Diesel variants. Input costs cannot increase on diesel alone. If they try to take a ride off the customer, they'll need to do a Honda later

- Fiat is CLUELESS. Nothing cures the (C)Karma of a bad launch. People came to see the car that was premium and all they saw was parts falling off everywhere. I think Fiat's engineers stole the 1.3 MJD design from somewhere. HOW can Punto / Linea have such dud engine + gearboxes when Swift can use the SAME engine in such a brilliant manner? Same for 90 BHP MJD. SX4 with all its gait seems more spirited than a Punto 90 (which feels slower than a 75 BHP Swift)

- There is only few things FIAT can do, before we can start the mourning of passing of a giant:

(*) A premium vehicle should feel like one. Relaunch Linea, Punto with GREAT, STUNNING, LOVABLE interiors (exteriors are good enough) with GREAT quality plastics, music system etc. Dump Blue and Me if required to cut costs

(*) Hire a different Ad agency. The initial Linea Ad, with the father drooling over Linea was great. The current ones of Get a Diesel car at Petrol price is downright misleading and CHEATING.

(*) Get the likes of Schumi here and race Linea 1.4 TJet with all other cars and show what it is to drive a Fiat. Get Better engines if required. If you have a 1.6 MJD back in Italy, get it here immediately, and don't save it for posterity.

(*) All this requires money. You can be serious, bet your future and get this done, or die a slow death.. rather SUICIDE because you are doing this to yourself

- Jazz will do great, i20 better worry - Unless Honda wants to make only 500 Jazz per month

- Brio will set the compact car segment ablaze. i10 / marutis.. watch out. As per the reviews, Honda didn't do an etios in Brio. (what were Toyota thinking... I'll save the rant for later)

No worries man ! :) Most of those segments are created using the base variant price of cars. So you might feel that the cars are juggled a bit !

lovely insights
what has Santa Fe done right?
considering it is priced at the equivalent of around 17-18 lacs in Oz, Thailand and elsewhere and is 29 odd lacs here, it still seems to be selling.
M&M Bolero, Xylo, Verito and Scorp seem to be working well too.
Toyota - well anything Toyota will fly here in India so no need to wax eloquent!

- Ford Fiesta is proving to be a flop, except price cuts during festive season
- Figo has reached its saturation point @ 5k units/ month
- Less said the better about Fiat, when are they going to learn?
- Beat with its diesel being offered not doing as expected
- Honda is riding the wave - City retains the King of the C segment. Jazz would do
better in coming months. Expecting Brio to be priced well, would take Honda higher
- Swift would continue to dominate going by the reviews and bookings!
- Nano is slipping, got to do something innovative in the marketing dept?
- MS has a mixed month partly due to the strike. Ritz holding up well. Kizashi a flop!
- Verna Fluidic going strong this month too.
- VW has steady month
- TATA's Indigo/Manza decent figures.
- Etios losing its fizz?

Cheers!

I think comparing beat sales of this month to previous month will be wrong as thel ast month's figures would include test drives etc. I think this month's figure provides a much better idea. I think this might be the reason for drop in sales figures of beat.
I do think Renault moving out should increase Logan's sales? I mean what logic is applied here? Was Renalt-Mahindra like Tata-FIAT?

The car that spoilt the party for Vento was ANHV. Vento would have done great if ANHV was not priced correctly but the Koreans got it right. Also VW still has less number of dealerships. I think VW will happy with their sales figures.

BMW sales haven't been received as yet. Where did you get that info on the X1?

When you are on a roll, things naturally fall in place because of the energy levels & high spirits. I'm sure the Hyundai CBU team got a shot in the arm from the success of the Fluidic Verna & the i20.

On the flip side, being on a roll can also make you over confident. The Figo's success gave Ford a much needed shot in the arm, but they really messed up with the Fiesta's positioning.

Many thanks :D. Will take you up on it if we meet.

Jazz at 600. Well these nos reflect the dealer despatches. Most HSCIL dealerships have a waiting list for this car. It will be while before the production catches up with the demand. We can expect it to repeat the City revival.

CIty is selling well. It may stabilise soon when the people realise that these prices are here to stay. Moreover the dealers could be stocking up for September (full year depreciation benefit) and the impending festival season.

It would be premature to write off the SX 4 nos. MSIL still has issues with its Maesar plant. the true picture may emerge in a few months from now. No discounts on the SX4 Diesel as yet.

Agree fully. In addition Honda is not trying to do an Etios here. They are sticking to their quality.

IMHO there are two other things Fiat can do. Get serious about the Indian market and get its own dealership and service chain or just be happy with supplying engines and let others sell the cars.
One of my colleagues is a big Punto 'punter'. He is now going through his first service hassles and the stepchild treatment.

Agree. I think Jazz will yet do well. Aug month may have been the new Swift launch effect. People were waiting to see what Maruti comes up with.

Brio looks like a compelling package. If one were to replace the current 'T' badge in Etios with a different one it will probably sell less than the Linea :D

- Must say "What A Honda" City...way to go tiger, good to see it back on trail
- Won't New Ford Fiesta need more than the price correction to get going? Shabby Un-inspiring Interiors, drive-train (though engine seems good), un-necessary funky design, small boot opening, cramped space at rear for 3 to seat in a row. Fiesta Classic would do much good instead
- New Swift seems will start climbing the charts from the reports of waiting lists
- Etios and Liva must be waiting to jump once the Diesel launches happen
- Linea, what car? is that how it is going to be for this fantastic head-turning beauty with gem of an engine?

I beg to differ with your view. I have owned a 90HP Punto and its way ahead of most of the C segment cars available today. I was able to touch 150 Kmph very easily without losing any confidence and Yes the handling at that speed too was amazing.

Again sir, I would like to differ. I found interior of Linea better than SX4 and City.

I am on a lookout for a C segment car now and had test driven almost all C segment vehicles available.

What Fiat needs now is a better marketing strategy and a Brand makeover.